Many technologies follow the predictable path of moving from the military to industry to consumers. As they continue down this path and become more pervasive, the technology becomes less expensive, easier to operate and the applications become more varied. GPS infrastructure required billions of dollars in past and continual investment and the original receivers and applications were distinctly military. Less than 25 years later a GPS receiver can cost less than $20 and the applications are limited only by the imagination of its millions of users.

ERP Systems too have their roots in military logistics, but then moved into the large end of the corporate market and on to the masses. SAP has always had an air of exclusivity around it -big companies, big projects, big bucks. As SAP saw its market share leveling off in the last decade or so, it made various plays for the mid-market with initiatives like SAP All in One - the traditional SAP ERP application with a fixed price, template -based deployment model. The SME response was not overwhelming. It is not just a matter of how you package and market something. An ERP system designed to run the biggest, most complex businesses on the planet simply cannot rest its sheer weight on organisations of a certain size.

I attended two SAP events recently that convinced me that SAP has something to believe in this time. True to the path of a Gartner hype cycle, SAP for SMEs has moved from hype, through disillusionment and into productivity. The cloud has forced SAP to rethink technology and use cases and possibilities. Some would say that the thinking took too long, but it allowed for better execution. SAP believes in its cloud strategy so much that it is changing its income statement to make cloud based revenue a separate line item, giving full visibility to its cloud execution.

On the same day that the SuccessFactors acquisition was approved, I attended the SAP Cloud Insider Track event in Palo Alto. To some extent, what I learned there was not new. It  was a confirmation of things I had heard in the last 2 years. This time, however, there was a new clarity and cohesiveness to SAP's cloud message. For the enterprise customers already invested in the business suite, SAP is creating complementary business applications that integrate with the business suite backend. Customers can thus leverage their existing implementation and add new generation functionality like mobility and user-centric interfaces. For the SMEs SAP is offering its new generation Business ByDesign cloud based ERP suite, with 1,200 customers already on board. The most interesting bits - the LOB applications and ByDesign - are built on the same cloud-based platform. Clearly, convergence is happening and integration becomes less of an issue. This is great for multinational corporations invested in the SAP Business suite who want to deploy an integrated on-demand solution to smaller subsidiaries.

For as long as I can remember people have been rumbling about the unsatisfactory user interface experience from SAP. Throughout the years, various attempts has been made to address this. We've seen Enjoy SAP, various portal UI technologies and some partner solutions with varying degrees of success. At the end of the day though, it lacked shine and consistency. A younger generation of corporate influencers and decision makers are increasingly unlikely to buy something that feels dated. The new on-demand applications shed this underwhelming baggage and look great on screen. Clearly the user experience was thought through from the very beginning.

The cloud era requires opening up. What would the iPhone be today if it was not for the App Store? Here, too, SAP got it right. No longer is SAP application development the expensive dark art it once was. Small companies with great ideas can become part of the SAP ecosystem and integrate with ByDesign. SnapEngage gave a demo of their live web chat SaaS solution built on Google App Engine that captures leads and chat logs directly into ByDesign CRM - something that I can't imagine would've been easy or even possible with the Business suite 10 years ago. To support the ecosystem, SAP has a lean and logical co-innovation program to take an idea into the mainstream on SAP's App Store. The availability of easy and low cost development options for SAP will lead to a blooming garden of SAP applications.

There is still work ahead for SAP, especially changing the various mindsets that prevail internally. Not all of the huge sales organization fully internalized that SAP is more than the Business suite. Depending on if you want an on-premise, hosted or on-demand solution, you’ll have to speak to different people. The future, however, is hybrid. You might want your core SAP HCM on-premise, and then outsource the hosting of a point solution like e-Recruiting and deploy ByDesign for your subsidiaries that interface with a 3rd party for payroll calculations.

Isn't the beauty of the cloud in the freedom that it brings?

P.S. As I finished this post, I learned that SAP's first foray into consumer software has become reality. SAP released Recall Genie - an iPhone app aimed squarely at the consumer market.

At HR2012 I will be presenting a session titled "A how-to guide for putting your self-service and other HR functionality on the Web" and will go over many of the things that can be used over the internet, decision factors in going internet-facing, legal requirements, security and support concerns, and architecture considerations.  While these are all very important, one of the often overlooked aspects of going onto the web is the importance of changing the way security operates with regards to maintenance and auditing.

What are IRS Section 415 Limits and who cares?

At this year's 2012 SAP HR Insider Show (HR 2012) held at the MGM in Las Vegas, I will be presenting on "Tips and tricks for integrating SAP E-Recruiting with third-party job boards, background check vendors, and tracking services." (http://hr2012.com/US/Sessions/2511/?tid=508&s=&u=). I have over 7 years of SAP experience in a variety of modules and different industries, with particular focus in Talent Management and E-Recruiting.

Are you interested in learning more about SAP’s E-Recruiting system capabilities?  Want to see a live demo of this fully Web-enabled, end-to-end recruiting solution that can help you take advantage of your talent pool quickly, find the staff you need, and collaborate with hiring managers? At this year’s SAP HR Conference (HR 2012), I will be leading a live demonstration of SAP’s E-Recruiting solution on Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 11:45 AM.  I hope you will join me!

Spime is a recently coined term for a theoretical object that can be tracked through space and time throughout the lifetime of the object i.e. from concept to reality and on to the next concept.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, October 20, 2011 - EPI-USE, one of SAP’s most experienced HCM Consulting, Implementation and Support Partners, is pleased to provide the following important update to our recent “Quick Tips for Successful Year End Processing of SAP Payroll” posted in September.

SAP’s Phase I for USA Year End 2011 (YE2011) was released along with Q3-2011 changes for Tax Reporter. Below is a list of the relevant HCM support packs that need to be applied to your system, listed by SAP release. It is recommended to apply the Phase I Support packs during the month of October 2011.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, September 7, 2011 - EPI-USE, one of SAP’s most experienced HCM Consulting, Implementation and Support Partners, is pleased to provide the following Quick Tips for Successful Year End Processing of SAP Payroll. Following are recommended processes and system items to be performed in preparation for year-end 2011:

September

There is a lot of talk about key employees and a absolute reliance on identification and ring-fencing of such employees for critical HR processes. Strategic Workforce planning relies on planning for these employee groups, recruitment and retention focusses on retaining and sourcing them, high potential career development programs are aimed at them. The more one speaks with senior HR and business leaders, reads the books and literature, the broader and more blurred the concise definition of a key employee seems to become. The following list is not exhaustive, but includes some of the definitions I have found illustrate the need for more clarity:

It takes the right people, process and technology to drive valuable business outcomes. Every function, process and action in HR, every system that underpins them and every person that operates in the HR function contributes to delivering value to the business in one or more of four broad areas:

What do you do after the standard eRecruiting content in BW has been activated? Which reports should you develop? Which KPI’s should you track? Which of the Business Objects tools should you deploy first? In most situations, your end-user isn’t certain what they want developed, as they have grown accustomed to gathering statistics in a variety of desktop tools. How do you take the next step with your eRecruiting data when there are very few requirements and an immediate demand for value from your Business Intelligence investment?

In the last couple of months there has been a huge surge of excitement around SAP HANA (SAP High Performance Analytic Appliance) and in-memory computing in general. As with many new technologies from SAP (multiple releases at short intervals), SAP’s vision for in memory computing was shrouded in mystery for me until I recently attended the SAP LABS training course TZHANA 1.0. The resources available (online), created a great deal of confusion and further questions in my mind. Everyone in the SAP arena has an opinion on what HANA could, would or should be. Eventually, my practice director felt sorry for me and sent me to this training class (partly because I had an extensive background in Sybase product technologies).

The three-day training class covered more about the internals of HANA than the integration of HANA with the existing SAP Netweaver Platform which I was expecting. I was however very happy to be there to learn more about this new appliance and discuss potential use cases with other attendees. As it turns out, the currently available version of HANA (1.0) is a somewhat detached solution with some integration available with Business Objects Tools. There is no integration yet with SAP BW in the present version but it was good to learn that the next version of HANA (1.0 SP3 - available in November 2011) will be integrated with SAP BW.

Here at EPI-USE Labs, we love Hibernate. We love how it abstracts away the underlying database and presents us with a familiar object model. We love how it allows us to traverse the object graph through plain getters. And we love the extras it provides, such as caching, locking and validation. However, we realise it is a leaky abstraction, and like all leaky abstractions, you could get burned if you’re not aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.

Whenever a developer is newly exposed to Hibernate, the conversation inevitably proceeds as follows:

In part one of this two part series we discussed the impact of the Hawthorne Effect on KPI's. (to view Part 1 of this series - click here)

So, what do you do from here?